An open letter was posted on social media by Pakistani-British actor Riz Ahmed, calling for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza. The letter urged world leaders and civilians to end the ongoing bombing in Gaza, where currently the death toll is set to hit 7000, including 3000 children.
“We urge your administration, and all world leaders, to honor all of the lives in the holy land and call for and facilitate a ceasefire without delay- and end to the bombing of Gaza and safe release of the hostages.”
“We refuse to tell future generations the story of our silence, that we stood by and did nothing. History is watching,” the letter, addressed primarily to US President Joe Biden, said.
The letter is signed by actors like Alyssa Milano, America Ferrera, Andrew Garfield, Ayo Edebiri, Bradley Cooper (who had also signed the other letter calling for release of all Israeli hostages), Channing Tatum, Politician Cynthia Nixon and Sandra Oh.
Jewish director of the film ‘Bottoms’, Emma Seligman, was also among the signatories. She clarified on Instagram that she was wrong to sign the letter demanding more funding for Israel. She released a post on her Instagram stories clarifying her position was always pro Palestine.
As social media users and human rights activists put out a loud chorus to end the genocide in Palestine, celebrities are also adding their voice. According to Variety, a group of 55 actors which included A-list celebrities like Cate Blanchett, Oscar Isaac, Joaquin Phoenix and Riz Ahmed, have signed an open letter demanding US President Biden to call a ceasefire in Gaza.
The letter includes celebrities like Ayo Edebiri, Muslim comedian and host behind Netflix’s ‘Patriot Act’ Hasan Minhaj, Jeremy Strong, Jessica Chastain, Jon Stewart, Sandra Oh and veteran Hollywood legend Susan Sarandon.
The letter demanded from Joe Biden to open his eyes to the current destruction and chaos in Gaza: “More than 5,000 people have been killed in the last week and a half – a number any person of conscience knows is catastrophic. We believe all life is sacred, no matter faith or ethnicity and we condemn the killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians.”
“We urge your administration,” the letter further states. “And all world leaders, to honor all of the lives in the Holy Land and call for and facilitate a ceasefire without delay – an end to the bombing of Gaza, and the safe release of hostages. Half of Gaza’s two million residents are children, and more than two thirds are refugees and their descendants being forced to flee their homes. Humanitarian aid must be allowed to reach them.”
The statement also quotes UNICEF spokesperson James Elder who condemned the misuse of international law on how Gazan civilians are stripped of their basic necessities and are living within destruction.
“‘Children and families in Gaza have practically run out of food, water, electricity, medicine and safe access to hospitals, following days of air strikes and cuts to all supply routes. Gaza’s sole power plant ran out of fuel Wednesday afternoon, shutting down electricity, water and wastewater treatment. Most residents can no longer get drinking water from service providers or household water through pipelines…. The humanitarian situation has reached lethal lows, and yet all reports point to further attacks. Compassion — and international law — must prevail.’ – UNICEF spokesperson James Elder.”
The letter ends with the signatories calls for everyone to stand for freedom, justice, dignity and peace for all people. “We refuse to tell future generations the story of our silence, that we stood by and did nothing. As Emergency Relief Chief Martin Griffiths told UN News, “History is watching.’”
While it does feel like many celebrities in Hollywood are either pushing false information or ignoring the bombing of Gaza, there are singers and actors who are raising their voice in favour of Palestinian civilians, demanding that a ceasefire be declared.
Roger Waters
The former Pink Floyd singer released a video statement where he spoke about his Palestinian friend Lomi Algeria, who lost 11 members of her family during the Israeli bombing. He called for a ceasefire between both parties. Waters has been a very vocal proponent of the Palestinian cause.
Academy and Emmy award winning actor Riz Ahmed released a lengthy statement on his social media accounts where he called for the world’s attention to the crimes committed by Israel in Gaza.
Veteran Hollywood actress Susan Sarandon has been a staunch supporter for the freedom of Palestine, sharing video clips on her Twitter account calling to attention the dilapidated hospitals of Gaza.
Hollywood actor John Cusack shared an account of his visit to Palestine and the difficulty it took to get through the security and borders, describing the land as an “open air prison”.
When I visited Palestine – my first thought going through the concrete , barbed wire , guns and steel – the checkpoints stories-high into the sky – was its was harder to get into – and felt far more imposing and dangerous than when I crossed through Checkpoint Charlie and got… https://t.co/cbFlECicJ8
He also addressed the argument that Palestinians should call for their freedom in a peaceful manner, sharing how they were shot by Israeli’s
Reminder – non violent protest has been tried – 3 years ago Palestinians of all kinds – teachers poets doctors you name it -organized a peaceful march to the boarder . No weapons – they were summarily executed . How about a cease fire now .
Emmy award winning British-Pakistani actor Riz Ahmed has broken silence to call out the silence around the violence in Palestine. In a lengthy statement posted on his social media accounts, then ‘Nimona’ actor began the note by talking about the power of storytelling which takes audiences on a journey.
“As storytellers we put ourselves in other people’s shoes and ask audiences to go on that journey with us. The reason this works is because underneath our differences, we feel the same fear, joy, grief and hope. Stories work because there is no ‘us’ and ‘them’. There is only us. Any story that says otherwise, that some people aren’t like us, is a lie.”
Addressing the ongoing one-sided narrative in the media, the actor pointed out that innocent lives are being lost.
“What’s happening in Gaza now, and has been happening in Palestine under the Occupation for decades, is horrific and wrong. The depth and reality of this suffering cannot be ignored.
If we look in only one direction, we will go even deeper into darkness. But this is exactly what is happening right how. We are being asked to look away while the civilians of Gaza, half of them children, are running out of time.
If we are on the side of humanity we must urgently speak up and try to avert the loss of innocent life. This means calling for an end to the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza’s civilians and vital infrastructure, the denial of food, water, and electricity, and the forced displacement of people from their homes. These are morally indefensible war crimes.”
Riz further wrote that now more than ever, it is important for all people to put themselves in the shoes of Gaza “before we all walk past the point of no return.”
Riz ended the note by urging everyone to raise their voices because “staying silent is not an option.”
“I’ll be posting links of how you can support, analysis from experts of all backgrounds advocating a just peace, and the voices of some people on the ground.
On Friday, Netflix dropped the highly anticipated animated fantasy film ‘Nimona’ which stars Pakistani-British actor Riz Ahmed, Chloe Grace Montez, Eugene Lee Yang as the main leads, and is adapted from the comics of the same name by ‘She-Ra’ creator ND Stevenson.
Since its release, critics have hailed the film as a gorgeous queer fantasy that calls for acceptance and equality for the LGBTQ+ community, but mostly critics have hailed Ahmed’s and Mortez’s performances, as Entertainment Weekly praised it for the casual queer representation as the main lead Nimona is a gender non-conforming being, and the romantic relationship between two male knights.
Speaking on the queer representation, Ahmed had said:
“I understand this is a big win and a big moment representation-wise, and we’re all so proud of that. But I think those moments only feel like real wins when they’re not tokenized, when they are actually there because of the emotional truth of the character. When we are honoring these characters as human, that’s when it feels real, you know?”
Writing on the powerful vocal performance by Mortez as Nimona, Polygon hailed her for creating the duality between the rebellious side of the vibrant shape shifter, but also exploring her vulnerable side as an outcast who doesn’t feel like she can belong anywhere.
Coming on the themes of queer representation, Mashable praised Nimona for being speaking on empowering the queer community:
“Along with its unique animation and rollicking action sequences, Nimona digs into themes of individuality, identity, and acceptance that aim to speak directly and warmly to the queer community. At a time when LGBTQ rights and spaces continue to come under attack from bigoted legislation(opens in a new tab), Nimonacements itself not just as a great fantasy film, but as an important one as well.”
Calling it a film that takes aim at the post 9/11 surveillance state, IGN praised Nimona for being “a tender and bold tale about challenging institutions, being a good ally, and the need to live as your true self.”
Nimona takes place in a science fantasy world where Ballister Boldheart (played by Riz) is the first commoner to be enlisted in the presitigous Institute of Elite Knights, when an accident takes place during the knighting ceremony after which he is forced to flee for his life. Partnered with the rebellious Nimona (voiced by Chloe Grace Montez) a shape-shifter who has a desire to do something evil, they team up to clear his name and investigate the perpetuators behind the accident.
Actor Fawad Khan confessed in an interview that he was looking forward to a get a role in the Hollywood feature film, The Reluctant Fundamentalist after he was led on for a year by the makers.
The Zindagi Gulzar Hai star shared that he was very disheartened when he did not get the role after waiting for such a long period of time.
“I came across this film where I was supposed to audition for the role, that went on for a whole year. I wasn’t led on. (Pauses) Yeah! OK! I was led on for almost a year. I thought that I’d be a part of it some way or the other. So it was for this film called Reluctant Fundamentalist,” said Fawad.
“It was under consideration for like a whole year. Towards the end of the year, I suddenly realized that it was not working out. It was not gonna happen. I was heartbroken. I had waited a whole year and I parked my career aside to a film I thought I was gonna do it right. That’s when I got into TV with a vengeance,” added Fawad.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist was released in 2012 and the role was bagged by the Oscar-nominated actor, Riz Ahmed. The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a story about young Pakistani man chasing corporate success on Wall Street. He finds himself embroiled in a conflict between his American dream, a hostage crisis, and the enduring call of his family’s homeland.
Now Bollywood star Ranveer Singh mentioned on the chat show Koffee With Karan, “I have been rejected for The Reluctant Fundamentalist.”
When Karan Johar mentioned the Bollywood film Bombay Velvet, Singh said that he was rejected but dropped from the project. He said, “I was not rejected for Bombay Velvet. I was unceremoniously dropped because at the time, I couldn’t justify the budget. My star value wasn’t as high. But, things have changed.”
Bombay Velvet, helmed by Anurag Kashyap, starred Ranbir Kapoor and Anushka Sharma in the lead roles. Karan Johar had a cameo. The Reluctant Fundamentalist starred Om Puri, Shabana Azmi, and Riz Ahmed in pivotal roles.
Journalist Rana Ayyub highlighted the ‘Islamophobic’ elements in Bollywood’s Sooryavanshi in her article for Washington post. The acclaimed journalist tweeted about the same, reinstating that, “yet another exercise in criminal Islamophobia that seeks to normalise Narendra Modi’s anti-Muslim agenda. She claimed that it “feeds into the Muslim as terrorist narrative.”
Starring Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif in the lead, it also features Ranveer Singh and Ajay Devgn. The film has already raked in over INR 150 crores at the Box-office.
Pakistan’s President Arif Alvi expressed his disappointment on the same.
He added, “The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, destroy its history.”
Dangerous for India. In this Islamophobic hatred India will destroy itself, no less. I hope & pray that sane elements within Indian society prevent this. Milton Kandera wrote that ‘the first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, https://t.co/gcyX1sNnIE
Earlier, Riz called out English films for their misrepresentation of Muslims, “The game right now is messed up. The game right now is rigged,” Ahmed said in a new interview with news outlet Muslim. “Muslims are either not on screen or they are [and] they’re the bad guys. They’re perpetrators or victims of violence. We’re either invisible or we’re villainized, cause the stories we tell about our community affect the laws that get passed, the people that get attacked, the people that get invaded.”
British-Pakistani actor Riz Ahmed has expressed his views on the way Muslims are portrayed on screen internationally.
“The game right now is messed up. The game right now is rigged,” Ahmed said in a new interview with news outlet Muslim. “Muslims are either not on screen or they are [and] they’re the bad guys. They’re perpetrators or victims of violence. We’re either invisible or we’re villainized, cause the stories we tell about our community affect the laws that get passed, the people that get attacked, the people that get invaded.”
Watching a clip form the 2014, Clint Eastwood-directed blockbuster film American Sniper, in which star Bradley Cooper shoots a Muslim child during the Iraq War, Ahmed shook his head.
“”It’s actually hard to watch this and not get angry, It’s crazy to think that, like, how many people had to say this was OK for this to be made. It’s just super racist.”
He pointed out that most of the Muslim people featured were terrorists.
“[We’re] gonna look back on that and look at it with the same cringe as we look at, you know, films that had blackface in them. Or films with, like, you know, cowboys and Indians, [where] the only good Indian is a dead Indian,” said Ahmed, who’s been outspoken about the importance of diversity and his experiences with racism. “Really, that’s what you’re saying, the only good Muslim is a dead one. This stuff’s so dangerous, because it enables the invasion of countries. It enables hate crimes. It enables discriminatory and racist laws being passed.”
He pronounced such style of film “wack, outdated, racist” and said such carelessness “costs lives.”
The Rogue One: A Star Wars Story actor implored filmmakers to show a Muslim community that’s more diverse, when it comes to race, geography, gender, sexuality and abilities. In June, Ahmed and his film company, Left Handed Films, partnered with the University of Southern California’s Inclusion Initiative and others to address the problem of underrepresentation through grants and mentorships to Muslim filmmakers. This followed the university’s Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism’s report that, of the top-grossing movies from 2017-2019, just 10 percent had any type of Muslim character, while fewer than 2 percent of those characters had dialogue. In real life, Muslims comprise nearly a quarter of the world’s population.
Ahmed also co-wrote and starred in the new movie MogulMowgli, about a British Pakistani rapper, which is a background strikingly similar to Ahmed’s own. (He was born in Britain to a Pakistani family and has performed as a musician.) The character’s name is actually Zaheer, but he goes by Zed, and that’s also a situation familiar to the man who played him. Ahmed’s first name is actually Rizwan.
“Zaheer has changed his name to Zed and the question is, is that a choice he made or is that something he was forced to do, because [he wanted] to fit in, because people couldn’t pronounce his name,” Ahmed explained. “And I sometimes ask myself that question. I have kind of censored my full name, and on some level, I wonder whether it’s just got too much weight and too much history.”
On that subject, Ahmed had clearly made a decision.
“One thing I’ll say is, after this film, I introduce myself as Rizwan,” he said.
Riz Ahmed may have lost the Oscar Award for Best Actor to Anthony Hopkins but he walked away with the best red carpet appearance when he took a moment to fix his wife Fatima Farheen Mirza’s hair. Ahmed had revealed in January that he had tied the knot in secret a few months back.
In a video that went viral on social media, the couple can be seen walking in together and as the photographers clicked their pictures, Riz paused for a moment to make sure his wife’s hair looked perfect. Ahmed’s act won the hearts of audiences across the world and they started hailing the couple as “relationship goals”.
The British-Pakistani actor was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for his role of a drummer who loses his hearing in the Sound of Metal.
In addition to winning hearts with his romantic gesture on the red carpet, Ahmed also made history at this year’s Oscars as the first Muslim nominee in the Best Actor category. He was up against Chadwick Boseman for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Sir Anthony Hopkins for The Father, Gary Oldman for Mank, and Steven Yeun for Minari. Hopkins eventually took home the award.
Meanwhile, Sound of Metal bagged two awards for Best Film Editing and Best Sound.
The 93rd Academy Awards were held on April 25, (April 26 PST) in Los Angeles at multiple locations: Dolby Theatre, where it has been traditionally hosted since 2001, and Union Station. Only the nominees, their guests and the ceremony’s presenters were allowed inside the hall due to coronavirus restrictions.
The event began with a movie-style opening credits sequence, as Regina King strode into the venue clutching a gold statuette.
“Live TV, here we go. Welcome to the 93rd Oscars!” she said. “And, yes, we are doing it maskless… people have been vaxxed, tested, re-tested, socially distanced.”
This year’s Oscars arrived at their Union Station venue two months late due to the pandemic — organisers have said it would have been “impossible” without the delay.
Before the show, stars paused briefly for pictures and socially distanced interviews on what organisers called a “teeny-tiny red carpet.”
An honourary award for the Motion Picture and Television Fund, which has supported struggling actors and crew particularly during the pandemic, was awarded at the Oscars’ traditional Hollywood theater base. Black entertainment mogul Tyler Perry was also honored.
But the bulk of the awards were handed out at the 1930s-built Union Station, chosen for its grand scale and outdoor courtyards, where white tents sheltering everything from Covid testing booths to catering were installed.
“We’re here, isn’t it crazy?” said Ahmed. “Human beings in the flesh!”
While The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences remembered late actors Irrfan Khan, Rishi Kapoor, Sushant Singh Rajput, Chadwick Boseman and other stars in the 93rd Academy Awards.
The late stars were honoured for their services to the cinema industry in the ‘In Memoriam’ sequence during the award show with Stevie Wonder’s song ‘As’ in the background.
British-Pakistani actor Riz Ahmed’s family reacted to his historic Oscar nod in the most desi fashion ever.
In a social media post Riz revealed that his cousin was unaware of what the Oscars were and was unable to understand why his nomination was such a big deal.
“My cousin Adnan legit didn’t know what the Oscars were,” wrote Riz on social media. “‘Why all the gas? I won [the] Best Client Engagement Award for the financial quarter’.”
“Other cousin steps in ‘Na it’s not as big as that, cos he didn’t win anything. It’s more like getting an email from your boss.’ Thanks, boss,” added the actor.
My cousin Adnan legit didn’t know what the Oscars were. “Why all the gas? I won best client engagement award for the financial quarter”. Other cousin steps in “Na it’s not as big as that, cos he didn’t win anything. It’s more like getting an email from your boss.” Thanks, boss.
For the unacquainted, Ahmed bagged the nomination for Best Actor for his performance in Sound of Metal, making him the first Muslim and Pakistani actor to get the nod in the category.
